Stephen Townley Crane was born on November 1, 1871 at 14 Mulberry Place in Newark, New Jersey to Jonathan Townley Crane (1819-1880), a Methodist minister, and Mary Helen Peck Crane (1827-1891), a clergyman’s daughter.  Crane’s childhood home at Mulberry Place was torn down in the 1930’s to become a playground site.  He was the youngest of fourteen children born to his parents.  His mother Mary had lost her four previous children all within a year of their births.  “Stevie” had eight surviving siblings; their names were Mary Helen, George Peck, Jonathan Townley, William Howe, Agnes Elizabeth, Edmund Byran, Wilbur Fiske, and Luther. 

As a child, Stephen Crane was plagued by constant colds.  Despite his delicate status, Stephen taught himself to read before the age of four, without being regularly enrolled in school until January 1880.  He was very smart, and at one point, completed two grades in six weeks.  Crane’s first surviving poem was written about wanting a dog for Christmas, and it was called “I’d Rather Have-.“  He wrote his first known story at the age of fourteen, titled: “Uncle Jake and the Bell Handle.”  He enrolled at Pennington Seminary, a ministry-type school in the fall of 1885, where his father was the principal from 1849-1858. Two years later, Crane left Pennington and transferred to Claverack College, an all-around military school.  He was seen by his peers as friendly, moody, rebellious, aloof, reserved, and not generally popular. 

In the summer months of 1888, Crane began working with his brother Townley, as his assistant.  He then worked there every summer until 1892.  Crane’s first signed publication was an article on the explorer Henry M. Stanley’s famous quest to find the English missionary David Livingstone in Africa.  It appeared in February 1890, in the Claverack College newspaper.  A few months following his publication, he was influenced by his family to skip a military career and transfer again to Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania to get a degree in mining engineering.  Stephen Crane irregularly attended classes, and having only attended Lafayette for a semester, he transferred again to the College of Liberal Arts at Syracuse University.  He then began to focus on English classes, writing full-time, and reporting.  Crane described college as “a waste of time,” and never graduated.  After a while, he began struggling to live and pursue a career as a free-lance writer.

He moved to New York after his mother died (his father had died earlier), and continued writing.  Stephen Crane published his first novel himself, entitled “Maggie, a Girl of the Streets: a Story of New York.”  Among other things, Crane started writing “The Red Badge of Courage,” which published in September 1895.  Crane met Cora Taylor (1865-1910) who ran a brothel in Florida, and instantly fell in love with her.  He was on his way to an expedition to Cuba in 1896 to report on the Spanish-American war when they met.   Stephen and Cora married around 1897, and they later moved to England to get away from all the publicity he was getting in America.  They did not have any children.  Meanwhile, Stephen’s health was slowing diminishing.  He died of Tuberculosis on June 5, 1900.